Raspberry Pi & Android TV

This weekend I came across another interesting development community trying to get the latest version of Android TV on their device. This is not a group trying to upgrade the ADT-1, a device that already runs Android TV. Instead, they’re trying to get Android TV to run on a Raspberry Pi with good success so far.

The video above shows a demo of Marshmallow running on a Raspberry Pi. There are some issues, such as “TV” stopping when the system first boots and at other points in the demo. This doesn’t seem to have an effect on the rest of the system though.

Performance is not great as there’s no hardware acceleration yet and a Raspberry Pi doesn’t have the highest end CPU or much RAM. Yet you can still navigate the system without much delay or jitter.

Like Remix OS putting Android on desktops and laptops, if you have a Raspberry Pi that you’re not using, this may be a neat weekend project down the line. At $35 for the base model, not including accessories like a Wi-Fi adapter, and input device, this would be the cheapest Android TV on the market (although it’s not official).

The Raspberry Pi does have software to run other types of entertainment center software like Kodi, but putting the full Android OS on it means you have access to a lot more apps and games. Problems like YouTube playing sound but not video on occasion and Netflix not working at all are acceptable given the large task these developers have undertaken. Development on this project will continue, and you can join their Google Group to read more about their progress.

Installation instructions as well as links to other parts of the project can be found via Geek Till it Hertz.

Nick Felker is a student Electrical & Computer Engineering student at Rowan University (C/O 2017) and the student IEEE webmaster. When he's not studying, he is a software developer for the web and Android (Felker Tech). He has several open source projects on GitHub (http://github.com/fleker)
Devices: Moto G-2013 Moto G-2015, Moto 360, Google ADT-1, Nexus 7-2013 (x2), Lenovo Laptop, Custom Desktop.
Although he was an intern at Google, the content of this blog is entirely independent and his own thoughts.